Monday, November 23, 2015

BIOURBANISM OF THE PARACITY

Published in the ARKKITEHTI / FINNISH ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW, November 2015

Marco
Casagrande

Open form enables the biourban city. An industrial city seemingly
independent of its natural environment is replaced by a living organism.

Paracity is a
modular urban structure system based on the use of a glue-laminated solid wood
grid, a sort of primary framework, within which people can build their homes,
create communities and establish cultivations. Organic by nature, Paracity is
capable of growing unaided on urban wastelands such as flood lands or slums.
This autonomous biourban growth is made possible by modular environmental
technology, which provides the necessary ’internal organs’ for the communities
created in the process. Paracity is designed to receive, process and convert
the waste generated by urban centres into a resource. It serves as an
acupuncture needle in the side of a polluting city.

6 x 6 x 6 m Paracity module at Habitare.

Open form

As it grows,
Paracity obeys the laws of Open Form introduced by Oskar Hansen at CIAM in 1959
and developed further by Svein Hatløy in the 2000s. The methodology is based on
the idea of communities growing spontaneously through reciprocally stimulating
design concepts. Actually, Open Form is very close to the Taiwanese pre-urban
tradition of creating self-organising and often unofficial communities. These
micro-urban communities are centres of knowledge, which also serves as fuel of growth
for Paracity. Paracity is a compost of local knowledge generating the energy
that gives birth to urban communities.

Paracity supplies
a growth medium for the development of the community framework to which people
add their own human elements. Design does not seek to replace reality. Flesh is
More. The primary structure consists of a grid of six or three-meter long
glue-laminated beams with CLT panels serving as bracing. The beams are
inter-connected using wood joints making it possible for people to extend the
primary framework as they wish. CLT possesses excellent earthquake and
fire-resistance properties.

Originally,
Paracity was designed for areas prone to floods and tsunamis. The entire urban
structure rests on CLT posts allowing the water level to rise freely up to the
ground floor which is left empty. In the dry season, the ground floor serves as
a common living area providing facilities for the exercise of tai-chi,
meditation, karaoke, boat repairs, midnight markets and other spontaneous
expressions of urban energy.

Biourbanism

Paracity’s
biourbanism grows to be assimilated into nature – the structure is auto-ruining.
Paracity is a human marshland or compost where the various organic levels
overlap and mix to create ‘agritecture’ with nature serving as the collaborative
architect.

Paracity feeds
on the flows of materials generated by the surrounding city. Even a polluted
river serves as a source of energy for this biourban internal organ. Paracity
lives and breathes side by side with the surrounding city in a symbiosis like
slums: the urban nomads purge the city from the slag produced by it. Paracity
represents just an enhancement of the process through the use of modular
environmental technology. Paracity is basically a high-tech slum.

In the Paracity
pilot project we have proposed in Taipei, household and irrigation water is
drawn from the polluted local river and purified. Pre-purified water is pumped
to the roof terraces where it is oxidised and root-purified by plants selected
for this purpose. From the green areas on the roofs, the water flows down to
the community gardens and urban cultivations. Paracity’s main source of energy
is the fast-growing biomass that thrives on the fertile flood lands along the
river.

Once it has
properly struck root and achieved its critical mass, Paracity will reach over
Taipei’s 12-metre high flood wall currently separating the industrially
produced urban housing from the river and its environs. The flood wall will
remain as an industrial relic within Paracity while the new organic urban
structure permits peaceful co-existence between the industrial city and the
river. Paracity will serve as a mediator between the industrialised human
environment and nature.

The fragments
of Paracity scattered around Taipei form a network of urban architecture that
steers industrial development towards an organic machine. By ruining the
industrialised city, it seeks to reclaim it to become part of nature and a
‘third-generation city’.

Third-generation
city

The
first-generation city is a built-up human community living in immediate
interaction with and depending on the natural environment. Taipei’s fertile flood
lands have offered favorable conditions for compact housing and the river has provided
food and a means of transportation while the mountains flanking the plains have
protected the city from the full force of typhoons.

The
second-generation city is an industrial city, seemingly independent from the
natural environment surrounding it. In fact, nature seems to be harmful to this
mechanical machine, as if the floods, for example, intend to destroy it. To
prevent this, Taipei has built the flood wall.

The
third-generation city represents the organic ruins of the industrialised city.
The existing symbioses between Taipei’s collective gardens, urban cultivations
and illegal settlements and the surrounding city are fragments of the
third-generation city. These areas serve as the city’s acupuncture points
piercing through its industrial skin to reach local knowledge. Drawing upon and
committed to this resource, the third-generation city grows to become part of
nature.

Urban acupuncture is a theory of ecological urban
planning that seeks to combine urban planning with the ideas of traditional
Chinese medicine. Fundamentally, it perceives cities as multi-tiered living organisms and tries to identify areas and districts ripe for an
upgrade and reconditioning. Projects relying on the local traditions and based on the principles of
sustainable development serve as acupuncture
needles that stimulate the entire organism by curing parts of it.

A ruin is the
catharsis of architecture where something man-made reverts to nature. A ruin is
the subconscious goal of the industrialised city and the trauma of modern man.
Taipei offers an advanced model for the symbiosis where the mechanised city
co-exists with unofficial residential areas, collective gardens, city
cultivations and urban nomads. With zoning only half-finished, the final
touches to the city are put by its residents.

Paracity is the
seed of a third-generation city. A modular biourban organism grows in response
to human needs while at the same time ruining the surrounding industrial city.
Seeds of Paracity are germinating within Taipei in the collective gardens,
illegal settlements, abandoned burial grounds and other undeveloped sites.
These seeds will contribute to the biological rehabilitation of the surrounding
city through urban acupuncture. From these points, Paracity will spread out
along the covered river and irrigation channels. Ultimately, the biourban
organism and the static city will reach a biologically sustainable equilibrium
that will give birth to the third-generation city. ark